


Written in the Universe

by Calacious



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adoption, Cheesy, Cooking, Domestic Fluff, Height Differences, Kissing, Marriage Proposal, Minor Character Death, Minor Injuries, Multi, Pidge's point of view, Playful hitting/pinching, Some angst, Some hurt/comfort, Teasing, alternative universe, bloody nose, established relationships - Freeform, family traditions, new year's
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-25 23:05:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13223121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calacious/pseuds/Calacious
Summary: Pidge is nervous about introducing her boyfriend to her family during their New Year's Day celebrations. She wants everything to be perfect, and is afraid that Lance might put his foot in his mouth.





	Written in the Universe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [meowgoeswolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meowgoeswolf/gifts).



> Happy New Year's, meowgoeswolf. Sorry that I was unable to write this in time for Christmas. I hope this is kind of, sort of, what you wanted in a Pidge/Lance fic. 
> 
> Please forgive errors that you may find. I used the Hawaiian concept of hanai family (adoptive) in this, and have Pidge thinking of her adoptive parents as uncles at first, and hope that the transformation in thought toward the end seems natural. There is a lot of love and schmoop, and playfulness in this.

A broad smile on his face, Lance tiptoes up behind Pidge and circles his arms around her, leaning down so that his chin is resting on her head.

"Whatcha doing, shorty?" he asks, getting into her personal space, and momentarily distracting her from the computer code that she's trying to write as a New Year’s gift for Hunk. She's been at it for hours now, and Lance is getting bored, which is not entirely unusual.

"Who you calling, shorty?" Pidge asks, raising an eyebrow and punching Lance in the arm.

He laughs, presses a kiss to her nose, making her blush. "My girlfriend," he says lazily, voice filled with love.

Shaking her head, Pidge uses the lapels of his shirt to pull him closer. "If you're going to call me, shorty, beanstalk, the least you could do is kiss me properly," she says, and with a wicked grin, eyes twinkling, she does just that, stealing Lance’s breath.

"Wow," Lance says, licking his lips, and staring down at Pidge with eyes that almost look like they're filled with hearts. "That was --"

"Watch it, mister," Pidge says, poking his chest with a finger, blushing, not meeting his eyes. She's knew to this whole kissing thing, and wants to make sure that it's just right. 

"Amazing," Lance finishes. His eyes are filled with tiny sparkles that remind Pidge of diamonds.

"Of course it was," Pidge says, rolling her eyes at Lance's antics, and privately giving herself a fist bump. "Now, let me get back to work, or did you have nothing better to do than molest me?"

Lance's mouth gapes and he blinks at her words, blushing profusely. He opens and closes his mouth several times, trying, but failing to form words. Pidge laughs and smacks him on the chest.

"It's so easy to tease you," she says, and then she turns around to finish the code for Hunk's present.

She's already got Lance's presents wrapped and placed carefully under the New Year’s tree, and has a special one planned for him tonight, one that cannot be unwrapped with family around. Keith's present will be arriving the day after New Year’s day, which, unfortunately, couldn't be helped. Shiro and Allura's present, as well as the one for their newborn twins, is already nestled safely under their traditional tree -- they'll be coming over for brunch, and to meet Lance, later in the day. She just needs to finish Hunk's present, and then put the finishing touches on Uncle Coran’s and Uncle Alf's gift, and everything will be ready for the family to descend upon the place come New Year’s morning.

"Ha ha," Lance says. "I knew you were just joking." He settles in behind her, arms wrapped around her middle, chin on her head, and watches her work. The look of relief on his face belies his words, but Pidge doesn’t call him out on it.

It's comfortable. Lance is a welcome warmth at her back. His soft breaths on the back of her neck are comforting, and she quickly falls into a steady pattern of work, only breaking from it when Lance distracts her -- for her own good -- with a kiss, or back rub, or a sugar cookie, or a glass of eggnog, or a pre-New Year’s New Year gift that she simply has to open, now, not later, which, upon a moment's inspection she determines could have been open on New Year’s morning.

Soon, in spite of all of the distractions, she's finished with Hunk's present, and is ready to put the finishing touches on Coran and Alf's, with Lance's help. 

“Okay, put this hat on,” Pidge directs, handing Lance a top hat with sparkly gold numbers on it representing the new year. 

She’s wearing a pointed holiday hat adorned with silver and gold tinsel and an array of intricate designs. The words, Happy New Year, written in several different languages, wrap around the hat starting at the silver and gold garland trimmed brim, and work their way up to the very top of it. It’s the same hat she’s worn every New Year since her adoptive family had started the tradition ten years ago. It’s special.

Lance complies, placing the hat on his head at an angle, and standing up to his full height when she reaches over to straighten it. Narrowing her eyes, Pidge contemplates her options: leave the hat at an angle, which is, admittedly, charming and adorable; find something to climb so she can reach up and fix the hat; or tickle attack Lance until he bends over so she can fix the angle of the hat.

“Fine,” Lance says, watching her warily. He straightens the hat, pouting. 

Rolling her eyes, Pidge relents with a sigh. “Fine, if you’re just going to pout about it, tip the hat.”

Smiling, Lance complies. It really is a good look for him. Her uncles will find it very dashing, and she wants them to see Lance the way that she does -- charming, dashing...wonderful in almost every way (he’s a terrible bed hog and spends way too much time in the bathroom).  

“And you’re sure we have to wear these sweaters?” Lance asks, pulling at his blue, cable knit sweater and frowning down at the three dimensional image of a shark wearing a party hat, blowing into a noisemaker, that adorns it. 

Giving Lance a smirk, Pidge nods. “Absolutely. It’s a Smythe family tradition to wear ugly Christmas sweaters on New Year’s.”

Lance raises an eyebrow, lips in a thin line. “Just like it’s a Smythe family tradition to give only ugly Christmas sweaters as Christmas presents, and to have New Year’s Day trees, rather than Christmas trees, and to--”

Pidge pulls Lance into a kiss before he can get too worked up. “I promise, I’m not pulling a prank on you,” she says, understanding where his thoughts are leading him. 

Lance searches her eyes for a few tense moments, before offering her a blinding smile and kissing her on the nose. “You gotta admit, though,” Lance says. “It would be a pretty good prank to pull on someone.”

Shaking her head, Pidge adjusts her own ugly Christmas sweater that she’d gotten from Lance -- a green, cashmere sweater with a googly-eyed fox wearing a red and yellow striped stocking hat and white booties with Christmas bells on them -- and sets the camera up in the living room, right in front of the New Year’s tree. 

Decked out with all kinds of noise makers, strands of gold and silver tinsel comprised of the date of the current, past, and future years, party hats, white lights, and balloons, the tree is a true masterpiece this year. Both Hunk and Lance had helped Pidge decorate it the night before, as was family tradition, and had become the tradition for her and Hunk. She hoped it would become a tradition for her and Lance as well.

“You, stand right there,” she directs Lance, who clicks his heels together as he salutes, back and shoulders perfectly straight. 

“Aye aye, el capitan,” Lance says, putting his arms stiffly at his side, chin up, lips in a line, jaw locked in place. The only hint of playfulness is in the sparkle of his eyes.

“At ease, soldier,” Pidge says, giving him a mock salute in return. 

Lance stands with his legs shoulder width apart, hands clasped behind his back, the hint of a smile on his face. Pidge stifles a giggle, and stands beside him, pushing the remote button to take a photo. 

Several poses and snapshots later, Pidge is finally satisfied. “This one is perfect for my uncles,” she says, holding up the instant photo for Lance to see. 

Lance has one arm wrapped around her shoulder, and she’s looking up at him, an almost exasperated look on her face, and unmistakable love in her eyes. He’d just done something completely ridiculous a moment before she took the photo, and though it’s only been a few minutes, she can’t remember what it was. Lance’s lopsided smile, and tall frame, juxtaposed against her shorter frame, and tight smile, make for a lovely New Year’s gift picture for her Uncles, Coran and Alf. 

She knows that Coran's going to love it, that he's going to love Lance when they meet for the first time on New Year’s Day. At least she hopes he will. They're both a little eccentric. Alf will take things in stride, as he typically does.

She slips the photo into the picture frame that she and Lance had crafted using the tops of old fashioned soda bottles (the most unusual and obscure she could find to collect throughout the year), popsicle sticks (well washed and painted with fingernail polish that she’d borrowed from Allura), and glitter (‘borrowed’ from one of Lance’s nieces), in keeping with the rule that had been established ten years ago -- all gifts given to the uncles on New Year’s Day had to be hand-crafted from whatever could be found around the house. 

Lance’s tongue sticks out of the corner of his mouth as he wraps the present, using a black and white copy of an advertisement that he’d worked on before Christmas, and masking tape. It looks like the work of a two year old. Pidge can’t help but think about how cute he looks when he’s concentrating. She wraps an arm around his waist, and leans her head on his shoulder as he works.

Lance is the real deal, as she's been telling her family for the past four months now. They've been dating for almost a year, seriously dating for six months.

She just hopes that Lance won't let his nerves run away with his mouth, and that he won't bump heads with Keith -- both of them are stubborn, and frustrating in their stubbornness. The only one who knows about Lance is Hunk, and that's because they've all been rooming together for four months now. She’d been nervous about having Lance move in, but Lance and Hunk had taken to each other like they'd known each other their whole lives. It had been wonderful.

"Don't be nervous about tomorrow," Pidge says, revealing some of the nervousness that she's feeling.

She knows that her hanai family loves her, that they accept her, quirks and all, but she's worried that they won't see Lance the way that she does, and that makes her stomach twist. If her family doesn't accept Lance, where does that leave her?

"I'm not," Lance says, kissing her, and enveloping one of her hands in his own. There's a striking difference there, too. His hands are big, and strong. Hers are small and dainty by comparison, though they are by no means weak hands. 

"Stop overthinking, and worrying your pretty little head about this," Lance says, stroking her cheek and kissing her on the nose. He spins out of her reach when she tries to swat him for the 'pretty little head' comment.

"They're gonna love me. I mean, how can they not?" He stands, pulling her to her feet, and gestures down the length of his body, twirling around once before grasping Pidge by the waist and spinning her around in a couple of dizzying whirls.

Laughter bubbles up in her chest, and she lets it spill forth. She's never laughed as much as she has with Lance in these past few months. At least not since her parents and older brother, Matt, died when she was eight. Back then, she’d sometimes thought she’d die of laughter, especially when Matt would tickle her, or her father would tell a funny story about work. 

She’d been devastated when her family had been killed in a car accident that she’d somehow survived. She’d refused to speak, or eat, had refused to do much of anything as she was moved from one family to the next by her social worker who couldn’t seem to understand what Pidge’s problem was, or why she ‘insisted on being difficult’. 

It wasn’t until she was placed with the men she now called her uncles -- Coran and Alf Smythe -- two years after her family was killed, that Pidge started to come out of her shell. The couple was patient and understanding. Both men had dealt with loss early on in their lives, and were willing to work with Pidge, not pressure her into talking or eating, or doing ‘girly’ things, like the other foster families had. 

Shiro, and Keith, the two boys the Smythes taken in a couple of years before Pidge, quickly became Pidge’s surrogate (and slightly overprotective) big brothers, even though Keith was only a year older than her. Shiro, however, was the same age that Matt would have been had he survived the accident. At first it had been hard for her to look at Shiro and not see Matt, but Shiro never took it personally, and never gave up on being there for Pidge in whatever capacity that she would let him. 

Coran, and Alf, had been patient and understanding, and had lifted her, and the others, out of their grief and shown them that they could still enjoy life in spite of their terrible losses -- all of them had lost their families in one way or another. Traditions, such as making New Year’s Day special, rather than making a big deal out of Christmas, which was surrounded by tragedy for Pidge, Shiro, and Keith, had gone a long way toward making that happen. It was silly, and fun, and Pidge didn’t know what she would have done without her boys, and without the traditions they’d established as a family.

Shaking herself from her reverie, Pidge punches Lance lightly in the arm. "I admire your confidence," she says.

"And here I thought you admired my..." Lance waggles his eyebrows and makes an obscene gesture, "charm."

Pidge stands on her tiptoes and drags Lance's face down so that she can tap him on the nose, and then kiss him. "I admire you for a lot of things," she says in a purr, delighting in the way that Lance's eyes darken, and he licks his lips. "But your charm is not one of them."

"You wound me," Lance says, placing one hand over his heart and the other over his forehead, swooning.

Pidge rolls her eyes, and drags Lance into the other room. The family will be arriving around eleven, and it's closing in on two in the morning. Hunk's over at Keith's and will drag the young man's ass over as soon as he's able to get him out of bed.

Hunk and Keith first met at a frat party gone wrong. Keith had dragged the suddenly homeless young university student over to Pidge’s apartment (funded, in part, by the university, and by her uncles) and basically told her that she had to take him in because he’d accidentally gotten Hunk kicked out of the house that he’d been living in, and there wasn’t room for Hunk at his own place (which was true at the time, but certainly wasn’t true now). Pidge had said, no, at the time, but that had fallen on deaf ears, and she and Hunk have been living together ever since, which has worked out rather well, because Hunk is an excellent chef and he’s also as tech savvy as she is. Now that he and Keith have started dating, however, she rarely sees Hunk outside of Keith’s company. 

The saying that opposites attract has never been truer than in the case of Hunk and Keith. Hunk's natural cheerfulness offsets Keith's moody angst and overall prickliness, which, even though she, Keith and Shiro are adopted, seems to run in the family, at least on their Uncle Alf's side. Uncle Coran is as cheerful and uplifting as they come.

Hunk and Keith make an ideal match, with Hunk being the yang to Keith's yin.

They'll be bringing cookies and bars, provided that Hunk had time to bake after he went over to Keith's. Pidge stops her mind from going where it is bound to go whenever she thinks of her adoptive brother, and his boyfriend -- her roommate since second year of university, now going into her second year of her doctorate in mechanical engineering -- together for any period of time.

She shudders as her mind takes her there anyway, and mentally shakes herself. She needs to make sure that the casserole is in the oven by nine-thirty, and the New Year’s pudding in by ten. Both are family traditions. Her uncles are bringing the ham and trimmings. Shiro and Allura are bringing drinks and some kind of salad, along with their adorable twins, Corey and Alfonso.

Pidge surveys the living room, takes a moment to admire the tree, and sighs. "I just love the magic of New Year’s," she says, recalling some of the best New Year’s celebrations she's had over the years.

"Me, too," Lance says. "Don't worry." He holds her from behind, chin on her shoulder. "Everything's going to be fine."

"I just, I want everything to be perfect," she says, biting her lip.

"It is," Lance assures her, kissing her on the cheek. "It's time for Santa's littlest New Year’s elf to get some sleep."

"Make one more crack about my height, stretch, and I won't give you your special Christmas present tonight," Pidge threatens idly, punching Lance in the arm. She's looking forward to this present, too, truth be told.

"Ouch." Lance pouts and rubs at his arm.

Pidge can almost hear the retort run though his head, and silently dares him to say what he's itching to say. He tamps down on his lips, though, to keep from saying something stupid. It's a wise decision. because Pidge is not above playing dirty, even if it is New Year’s morning.

"To bed," she orders, pointing, and Lance turns on his heel, salutes, and marches forward. Laughing, Pidge follows, shutting the door behind them.

The next morning dawns far too early for Pidge's liking, and she has to push her way free of Lance's long, octopus-like limbs that are entwined about her, before she can get out of bed and shower. Lance mumbles something incomprehensible, smacks his lips, moves his limbs until he's grasping Pidge's pillow, a lopsided grin on his face, and then he's sound asleep once again, lips pressed to the pillow.

Pidge snaps off a quick photo, sends it to Lance's mother (she and Lance had spent a four day Christmas weekend at his parent’s house), and quickly showers, knowing that, once she's able to prod Lance out of bed, his shower will not be quick. He likes to primp and preen and has far more product for hair, face, and body than she's familiar with.

When she'd first met Lance's family on Halloween (a big McClain celebration), Lance's mother and sisters had regaled Pidge with hilarious (and not so hilarious) stories about Lance's morning rituals from his earliest years to just before he'd headed off to university. They'd also shown her the most adorable baby pictures, her favorite being of a buck naked two year old Lance streaking down a beach. The look of absolute joy on his face was priceless, and his overall chubbiness was decidedly cute as well. Lance's mother had given her a copy of it, much to Lance's chagrin. She liked the way that it made him blush whenever she brought the picture up, or showed it to him.

Pidge hums to herself as she gets ready for the day, and then plops herself on the bed, straddling Lance to tickle-kiss him awake, which has proven to be far more effective than some of the other tactics she's used on him in the few months that they'd been together, together.

Dousing him with water had only succeeded in giving her a damp mattress, and a still sleepy, zombie-like Lance for the rest of the day. He'd also moped for the rest of the day because his hair had refused to cooperate.

Pulling him out of bed by his ankles, as one of his brothers had suggested (possibly as a joke), had ended with a trip to the ER, a concussion that had to be monitored for the next three days, and a total of five stitches to the back of Lance's head (not to mention that the patch of hair that they'd had to shave for the stitches had only just begun to fill in; Lance had been far more concerned with that than he had been about the concussion). The blood had been murder on her carpet, too, and she'd felt like the worst girlfriend in the history of girlfriends in spite of Lance laughing it off and telling her the terrifying story of when he'd been ten and his brother had cracked his head open on a cement floor using the same tactic for waking him.

"Mhm?" Lance says groggily, eyes barely open when Pidge gently tickles his rib cage and follows that up with a kiss to his neck.

"Time to wake up, sleepyhead," Pidge whispers the words into his ear, and then kisses him on the nose, his eyebrows, his chin, each cheek, and then his lips, which have turned upward into a crooked smile.

"Five more minutes," Lance says, pouting and closing his eyes.

Sighing, Pidge tickles him under his chin, and kisses each of his eyelids, then nips his left ear.

"No," she says firmly, planting a kiss on his lips, and smiling at the moan that it elicits. "You need to get up now. My family will be descending on this place like a pack of hungry wolves in a little under three hours, and you need to be showered and ready in one and a half."

Through trial and error, Pidge has discovered that giving Lance a rather vast frame of time within in which to work, generally ensures that he'll be ready when she needs him to be, which, in this case, means that he'll be ready in about two hours. She's also learned that he never meets whatever time limit she sets, so she has to give him at least a half an hour of leeway. It isn't perfect, but it's workable. She wonders how on earth he'd managed to get to his university courses on time, and how he’s held onto his job as a junior ad executive at an advertising firm for as long as he has.

Lance frowns and stretches, blinks slowly as he wakes, and scratches at his stomach. He squints at the clock and groans. Pidge refuses to let him close his eyes again and pulls him up, kissing him and exposing him to the cool air of the apartment. Lance hates to be cold. He shivers and whines a little, but finally returns Pidge’s kiss, and then gets out of bed to complete his morning routine, which gives her a couple of hours to get the apartment ready for her family, and Hunk (if she’s not mistaken, and she rarely is, Hunk will soon be an official part of the Smythe family).

Two hours later, Lance steps out of the bathroom followed by a billow of steam that curls around his thin frame. He’s got a happy smile on his face, and is wearing the clothes that Pidge set out for him -- the ugly Christmas sweater that Coran had blindly bought for him with a few hints from Pidge (sky blue with a fuzzy slipper wearing shark tucked in a red robe), the pair of blue, yellow, red, green, and black striped pajama bottoms that Alf had bought, and the blue and green spotted stocking cap that Pidge had given him on Christmas Eve. 

She was wearing a similar outfit, nothing matched, but it was tradition. It was a tradition that Pidge enjoyed, because it reminded her of when she’d first started laughing again, shortly after moving in with the Smythes, two years after the death of her family.  Coran had dressed in an overly large orange sweater that featured a googly eyed chihuahua eating a taco while surfing, and Alf, always so serious, had worn the ugliest purple sweater that she’d ever set eyes on (he wore it every year). It had a banjo playing cat wearing a Santa hat that had a jingling bell as a tassel. Shiro, Keith and Pidge had each been given an ugly Christmas sweater and a pair of mismatched pajama bottoms for Christmas that year, and the tradition had begun. 

Pidge can still remember the look on Keith’s face when he’d pulled his red sweater out of the wrapping. It was a war of confusion and hurt, and then delight as he spread it out on the floor, and was able to see the design on it -- a dancing hippo in a purple tutu and ballet slippers, holding an overly large candy cane. He’d let out a bark of laughter that seemed to shock him, and when no one said anything about it, he smiled, and laughed again, softer, and hugged the sweater to himself. His laughter had been contagious, and Pidge found herself laughing at the ugly black sweater Shiro had gotten from their uncles -- a furry llama wearing an elf’s hat, its back decorated like a Christmas tree would have been, with actual baubles that shook and made noise when Shiro moved. Her own sweater, green, had a gun-toting badger wearing a plaid hunter’s cap. 

She still has the sweater, and it still fits, but this year, she chooses to wear the sweater that Lance got her, along with the reindeer/santa’s sleigh patterned pajama bottoms his mother (upon hearing of Pidge’s family tradition) had bought her the day after Christmas. 

Lance’s family is as wonderful, and accepting, as he is. They’ve already welcomed her into the family, and made her feel like one of their own. It’s a little overwhelming, and she worries that things are going too fast, but when she looks at Lance, her heart gets stuck in her throat, and she knows, without a doubt, that there’s no one that she’d rather spend the rest of her life with than him. 

The knock at the front door, only perfunctory as her uncles spill into the apartment a split second later, rouses her from her reverie, and Pidge rushes to the door to greet them. Lance somehow beats her to it, and is smoothly bowing and introducing himself, taking hats and coats, while Pidge is standing there, mouth agape at her sometimes awkward boyfriend, turned debonair, as he deposits coats, hats, food and presents in their respective places, while inviting her uncles to take a seat and help themselves to hors d'oeuvres.

There’s another knock at the door, and this time Pidge beats Lance to it, letting Allura and Shiro in, relieving them of their twins while Lance takes their coats and leads them into the living room, chatting to them about some play of Shiro’s that he’d seen when Shiro had played quarterback in college football, recognizing him immediately from Shiro’s college heydays. He’s a high school coach now, and has led his school to states several years in a row now. Pidge is very proud of Shiro, but she’s also very protective of him and of his desire to keep out of the spotlight as much as possible.

“You didn’t tell me that you were related to  _ the _ Shiro Smythe, all-star football, baseball and basketball player,” Lance accuses. His cheeks are flushed, and his eyes shining. He looks a little shell-shocked, and Pidge can tell that his nerves are kicking in just a little. 

Laughing, Pidge slaps his arm playfully. “Which Shiro Smythe did you think I was related to?”

Sputtering, eyes going wide, Lance tries, but fails to come up with a coherent answer to her question. He just looks from Shiro to her, and back again, completely oblivious to the fact that the others are politely trying not to laugh at him. 

“He’s like  _ the  _ best player of all time, and the number one coach in high school football, baseball and basketball,” Lance says, voice mildly accusing, and hurt, as though Pidge’s omission had been on purpose. Truth is, no one in their family had made too much out of Shiro’s success, because to them, he’d just been Shiro, all-around good guy, brother, and son to the Smythes who’d adopted all three of them a few years after Pidge had come to live with them.

Rolling her eyes, Pidge hands Lance one of the twins. She has no idea which one it is, because to her, all babies look alike, especially when they’re twins, and they’re both dressed in the same exact sweater -- black with purple, top hat wearing penguins -- and pajama bottoms -- heather gray with a pattern of wooden blocks. 

“Oh, you look just like your daddy, don’t you?” Lance coos at the baby, holding the tiny, squirming infant up so that they are eye level and babbling at it. “And you both look just like your mommy, too,” Lance says, including the twin that Pidge is holding in the conversation. 

He reaches for the other twin, and Pidge, already feeling a little uncomfortable holding the baby, hands it off to him. She loves her nephews, but is by no means an expert at baby wrangling. Clearly, Lance is, judging by the way that he holds the babies, and immediately earns smiles, wordless babbles and bubbles from them.

“How do you know which one is which?” Pidge asks. She doesn’t know what she’d do if she had twins, and mentally shudders at the thought. According to Lance, twins run in his family.

Lance, sitting cross legged on the floor, a twin resting on either leg, gives her an incredulous look, but just shakes his head and makes funny faces at the babies. “Auntie Pidge’s just teasing,” he says, tickling each twin’s tummy, eliciting gurgled laughter from them, and wide smiles. 

“He’s a natural,” Alf says, nodding toward Lance. There’s a soft smile on his face. He’s holding  Coran’s hand. 

“The one on Lance’s left is Alfonso, and the one on his right is Corey,” Allura says. She’s kneeling beside Lance, watching him a little warily, hands folded together as though she’s trying to keep from reaching out to snatch her children from Lance, but wants to be polite. 

A high school counselor, Allura and Shiro met shortly after he’d started coaching at the school she worked at, and the rest is pretty much history. It was clear, at least according to the family, that Shiro was smitten with the high school counselor pretty much from the start. Their three year courtship had been almost painfully long for Pidge who’d known that they were meant to be, and hadn’t minced words, telling everyone who would listen (and those who wouldn’t) that the two should, ‘just tie the knot already’. 

Pidge steals a glance at Lance, and tucks a loose hair behind her ear, bites her lip. He’s babbling nonsense at the twins, exaggerating his movements and making ridiculous faces at them. It’s hilarious, and Pidge’s heart feels like it does a somersault in her chest. It hits her suddenly, this feeling that’s been building up inside of her for the past year is love. She swallows the lump of heart lodged in her throat and reminds herself to breathe, that this isn’t a new feeling, it’s just one that she’s refused to look at and examine too closely.

“That he is,” Coran says, moustache twitching, eyes twinkling as he watches Lance with the twins, and Pidge watching Lance. He gives Pidge a wink. She can feel her cheeks heating up, even as she smiles at the man who is so much more than an uncle to her. The word, father, burns in her heart, and she realizes that it’s true. That, at some point in time, she’d stopped thinking of Coran and Alf as her uncles, and had started, at least in her heart, thinking of them as her dads. Though she’s never said it aloud, she hopes that they know how she feels about them, how much she loves them.

Lance is so completely absorbed in entertaining the twins that he doesn’t even notice that everyone is watching him, that there are several photographs being snapped of him, and that Pidge has secretly sent off several photos to various members of his family of Lance making silly baby faces. It’s endearing, and Pidge finds herself falling even more in love with Lance by the second.

Hunk and Keith enter the apartment in the middle of a debate about some theory, completely ignoring the presence of the others as they head directly into the kitchen, Hunk working on setting up the food and putting his bars and cookies onto plates, as he and Keith continue their heated discussion. 

“But hasn’t the existence of black holes been like scientifically proven to be true?” Hunk asks as he ducks his head into the oven, checking on the casserole, and pulling it out of the oven, even as he listens to Keith’s much lower voiced opinion on whatever it is they are discussing. 

“Black holes?” Lance lifts his head up from his entertainment of the twins, and his brows furrow.

“Ignore them,” Pidge says, patting him on the knee, and rolling her eyes. “If it’s not black holes, it’s Mothman or the Jersey Devil, or --”

“Ogopogo,” Coran cuts in with an eye roll that rivals Pidge’s. 

“Don’t forget the Tatzulwurm, love,” Alf says, pressing his lips to the back of Coran’s hand, making everyone laugh as they recalled the six month period of intense study that had gone into that particular cryptid from the Alps, which had in turn sparked a month-long trek through the Swiss Alps, and had then turned into a lifelong pursuit for the then sixteen year-old. Five years later, Keith’s love of cryptids, conspiracy theories, and space has led to a career as a cryptozoologist. He dabbles in theoretical physics and astronomy, which is an interest that both he and Hunk share.

Pidge leans in close and whispers, “I’ll explain later,” in Lance’s ear, earning a blush when she kisses his cheek.

“I understand that, but how can you completely disregard Michio Kaku and Einstein’s work in the field of string theory?” Hunk’s voice filters into the room.

Whatever Keith says in response is lost to the overall clamor of Hunk at work in the kitchen, but Pidge knows that Keith’s more than likely lecturing Hunk about Einstein’s actual field of work, and how his theories spearheaded a lot of the research that has birthed today’s study of modern physics, but he hadn’t actually created string theory, rather that he’d been working on something that he’d called the, “theory of everything,” before he’d died. 

The renewed talk of sports, babies, and work taking place in the living room soon drowns out Hunk and Keith’s debate, and Pidge loses herself in the overall holiday spirit of joviality, every now and again adding something to the conversation. 

Lance reluctantly hands the twins over to ‘Grandpa Coran’ and ‘Grandpa Alf’ and pulls Pidge into his lap as though it’s the most natural thing in the world for him to do while talking about the nuances of making ad copy and how, when he’d been in high school, he’d watched all of Shiro’s games except when he’d been deathly ill with pneumonia, and then when his appendix had ruptured and he’d had to spend a month in the hospital, and the three day coma he’d been in when he’d almost drowned during a swim meet. 

Some of these stories, Pidge had heard from Lance’s mother, or from Lance himself, but neither one had mentioned the near drowning, and Pidge files that away for later. She fully intends on interrogating Lance after everyone has left, and it’s just him and her and the lights from the New Year’s tree sparkling as a backdrop.

When Hunk finally emerges from the kitchen, carrying three plates piled high with food, Keith trailing behind him, carrying a few plates of his own, Pidge’s stomach is growling. 

“Someone’s a hungry little fox,” Lance whispers in her ear. 

Pidge pinches his thigh in retaliation. “That’s for calling me, little, Big Bird.”

Lance rubs at his thigh and pouts, but gives her a sloppy kiss on the neck, and takes the plates of food that Keith offers him and Pidge. He frowns, brow furrowing, and then his face lights up in recognition. Pidge looks from the now frowning Keith to her delighted looking boyfriend. 

“Mullet-man!” Lance shouts. “I never thought I’d see you again. How are you, man? How come you didn’t tell me that you were related to, Mullet-man?” Lance asks, turning to pierce Pidge with an accusing stare.

Blinking, Pidge looks from Keith, who has a murderous look on his face, cheeks red, eyes narrowed in anger, to Lance, who seems truly excited to see Keith, yet hurt that Pidge didn’t tell him who her other brother was. 

“Uh, because I had  no idea I was related to Mullet-man?” Pidge says, confused, looking to Keith, who is still glaring at Lance, for answers, and then to Hunk, who shrugs his shoulders. Apparently he didn’t know about Mullet-man either. 

“Stop calling me that,” Keith says through gritted teeth, growling. “It wasn’t funny then; it isn’t funny now.”

The smile falls off of Lance’s face, and Pidge’s heart feels like it’s stuck in a vice. She loves Lance, but if he’s hurt her brother, even before she knew him, she can’t possibly stay with him. 

“Ah!” Coran interjects, raising a finger in the air, moustache practically dancing along with the amused sparkling of his eyes. Some of the tension drains from the air as all eyes turn to look at him. He blushes slightly and Pidge can see the gentle, supportive squeeze that Alf applies to  Coran’s knee, and the way that Coran seems to regain his confidence directly afterwards. She thinks she has that same kind of supportive love with Lance, but if he and Keith can’t even be in the same room with each other, without one of them shooting daggers out of his eyes at the other, she doesn’t know if it will work between them.

“Yes, love?” Alf asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh, yes, I seem to recall a rival that you’d mentioned in high school, Keith?” Coran says. 

Keith narrows his eyes and nods.

“And a stage when,” Coran clears his throat, and Pidge can swear she hears him utter the word,  _ mullet _ , during the throat clearing, and if the titter of laughter from Shiro and Allura are anything to measure it by, she had heard the throat clearing correctly. She carefully schools her own features, and holds in her laugh as she recalls that stage as well. 

Keith is now looking mutinous, arms crossed defensively over his chest. He’s no longer glaring at Lance, but at everyone in the room, daring them to laugh.

“Well, when a certain young man standing in our midst refused to get a haircut,” Coran finishes. “I thought it was a rebellious stage.”

“I happened to think he looked rather dashing,” Alf says, winking, and earning a crack of a smile from Keith.

“So, is your sister’s, Lance,  _ the _ Blue Lion you often complained about after your wrestling matches?” Coran asks. 

Keith scowls, and nods. Hunk sidles up next to him, and wraps an arm around his waist. The tension seeps from Keith’s shoulders as he practically melts into Hunk’s embrace. 

From rival high schools, the Blue Lions and the Red Devils, have been at odds for as long as the schools have been competing, which has been for decades. Pidge can remember her own Blue Lion rival in Quiz Bowl, Lisa Rodgers. 

“And wasn’t there some big hulk of a boy who was Shiro’s rival in football?” Coran asks, frowning as he tries to recall the young man’s name. He’d been awful, and had nearly cost Shiro his arm during a game.    
Lance’s cheeks turn bright red from anger and his eyes flash. “Billy, Badass, Zarkon,” Lance practically spits the word out. “He was kicked out of school my freshman year for hazing freshmen players.”

There’s more to Lance’s anger than he’s willing to share right now, and Pidge files her curiosity away for her after party interrogation. She pats Lance’s leg, and squeezes his hand when he reaches for hers, threading their fingers together. 

“Huh, so you didn’t like ol’ Badass Zarkon either?” Keith asks, expression neutral.

Lance shakes his head. His eyes are harder than Pidge has ever seen them. She wonders if he was one of the freshmen that Zarkon had hazed, and just what that entailed. It pains her heart to think of something bad happening to Lance. What had happened to Shiro had been horrible, but it hadn’t gotten the young man kicked off the team, or ended his high school career.

The sound of a gurgling stomach fills the silence, and Hunk’s face turns crimson in embarrassment that he hides behind laughter. 

“C’mon, let’s finish getting the plates of food delivered so we can share the highlights of the year, and eat,” Keith says, patting Hunk’s stomach, and then pulling him toward the kitchen. “Welcome to the family, Blue,” Keith says as he and Hunk retreat to the kitchen to gather the remaining plates. 

Lance blinks away the darkness in his eyes, and then he’s smiling, and pressing a kiss to Pidge’s cheek. “Thanks, Mullet,” he calls out, and laughs when Keith growls in response. 

Rolling her eyes at their antics, Pidge rests her head on Lance’s chest, and simply treasures the warmth, the steady beat of his heart. She marvels at how easily Lance has managed to insinuate himself into her family, in spite of past rivalries, like he’s always been a part of it, like he belongs there, with them, and always has. Like perhaps this was always meant to be. Like maybe it was written in somewhere in the universe.  In the very stars themselves. 

“Cheesy,” Pidge mutters to herself and stabs at a strawberry that’s threatening to roll off the plate, raising it triumphantly in the air, she moves to take a bite out of it, but a look from Coran has her shoulders sagging, and she reluctantly returns the speared strawberry to the plate. 

“Cheesy? I put the amount of cheese into the casserole that you told me to,” Lance says, raising a bite of food to his lips, and giving her a shocked look when she bats the food out of his hand. 

“You’re such a dork,” Pidge says, snorting when Lance stares longingly at his food, practically salivating. “It’s family tradition to share the highlights of the year, and what we’d like the new year to bring before eating,” she says, taking pity on her boyfriend.

Lance gives her a crooked smile, and, after eyeing the food one last time, places the plate on the floor beside them, and leans back against the couch. “You’re the highlight of my year, strawberry shortcake,” he says, nibbling at her ear, and grunting when she elbows him in the gut. 

“When will you learn not to call me short, string bean?” Pidge asks. 

“When you stop taking pot shots at my height,” Lance quips. 

“So, when are you going to make an honest man out of stilts?” Shiro asks, nudging Pidge with a foot, and raising his eyebrows when she shoots him a glare. “What? How many times did you ask me when I’d be making an honest woman out of my darling princess?”

“At least seventy-five,” Keith drawls from where he’s sprawled out on Hunk’s lap, “million times.”

Laughter rings throughout the living room, and Pidge can feel the tips of her ears growing red as she crosses her arms over her chest and sinks into Lance’s embrace.

“Marry me,” Pidge says, turning so that she can see Lance’s face, the way that his expression goes from amused to serious in the split second that it takes for her words to register. He searches her eyes, blue eyes darting to and fro before settling into a pool of love. 

“Okay,” he says, kissing the tip of her nose. “But, I want all of the bells and whistles, and I would like a proper proposal and a diamond ring, and--ooh,” the air rushes out of him in a woosh, and he rubs at the spot in his stomach that Pidge has elbowed. 

“Fine,” he says. “No diamond ring, but I want a big wedding.”

Laughter accompanies that proclamation, and as the realization of what she’s done dawns on her, Pidge buries her face in her hands and moans. 

“Don’t worry, love,” Lance whispers into her ear, rubbing her back. “We don’t have to get married if you don’t want to.”

Pidge raises her head so quickly that she cracks into Lance’s nose, almost breaking it. “Ohmygoodness, I’m so sorry,” she says, trying to wipe at the blood with her fingers, and barely registering when one of her uncles holds a handkerchief to Lance’s bleeding nose, directing him to tilt his head back.

“Take it easy,” Alf says, inspecting the swollen nose. “Pidgey, be a dear and get us a washcloth, would you?”

“Yes, dad,” Pidge says, unaware of the shocked look that passes between her adoptive family members as she hastens to comply. Nodding numbly, Pidge quickly extracts herself from Lance’s lap, missing his warmth immediately, and scrambles to wet a washcloth and bring it back to the living room where everyone has gathered around Lance. 

He’s smiling, gesturing grandly with one hand as he tells a story about the time that his older brother gave him a bloody nose when he ‘accidentally’ slammed a door in Lance’s face. The black looks on the faces of her brothers at Lance’s self-deprecating laughter as he tells the story, loosens some of the tension in her shoulders, and makes her heart skip a beat. She’s heard plenty of stories about this older brother’s of Lance’s, and while he laughs them off, she wants to pummel him, and is pleased to see that her brothers, Allura, and her uncles, her dads, seem to feel the same way that she does.

Coran mops at the blood on Lance’s face, and Shiro takes a closer inspection. He knows a broken nose when he sees one, and Pidge releases a breath when Shiro smiles and pats Lance on the shoulder. 

“Not broken,” he declares. “But it’ll be tender for a few days, and I suspect that my little sister has given you a pair of black eyes. You sure you want to marry her?”

Shiro ducks his head and rubs at his side when Allura pinches him. He cups a hand over his mouth and whispers, loudly, into Lance’s ear, “You sure you want a lifetime of this kind of abuse?”

“Where do I sign up?” Lance asks, voice low and tender, goofy grin on his face. 

Pidge can see Keith rolling his eyes and fake gagging off to the side, and smiles when Hunk pinches him lightly in the side, making Keith scowl. 

Lance reaches for Pidge’s hand, and brings it up to his lips so that he can kiss the palm of her hand.

“Head injury aside,” Coran says dryly as he stands, cracking his back and rubbing at it. “You should be right as rain in a couple of days.”

“Can’t say the same for either of us, love,” Alf says. He holds a hand out for Coran to take, and groans as his back and knees crack on the way up. “I’m afraid that we aren’t as young as we used to be.”

“No, we aren’t,” Coran says. He cups Alf’s face and, oblivious to their audience, or maybe not caring, kisses him like no one is watching. “But there’s no one else I’d want to have by my side, growing old with me.”

“That’s the kind of love that I want, the kind of love that your dads have,” Lance breathes the words out, eyes locked on the men standing in their midst. “Will you marry me for real, tater tot?”

“Absolutely, skyscraper,” Pidge says, settling back to watch her dads, who have finally stopped staring into each other’s eyes, and taken their seat on the couch.

“Good,” Lance says, tucking her head under his chin, and holding her close as the family starts sharing the highlights of their year, and what they look forward in the year to come. 

For Pidge, it’s Lance, getting to know him better, taking her brothers to beat up his big brother and Billy Zarkon, and growing old with him. Written in the universe or not, Pidge knows that this is what she wants, more than anything she’s ever wanted before. 

Cheesy? 

Most definitely, but, just as he’d added more cheese to the casserole than she’d told him to (Lance’s protests aside; Pidge knows the truth, she saw that extra cup he poured in when he thought she wasn’t looking), Lance adds the joie de vivre, the spice, the extra cheese, that she needs, even when she thinks she doesn’t. 

 


End file.
